One of the fun experiences I had this summer was a lovely Saturday morning spent visiting six beautiful private gardens, all part of our town’s garden club “tour”. From my vantage point, every garden on this tour was amazing. These gardens looked their best – the flowers well-placed, buoyant and colorful, the mulch perfectly applied, and not a weed in sight.

The manicured gardens were delightful to look at. When I returned home, I looked at my own flower and vegetable beds, and it was obvious that something was different on my own home turf. The question was not what to do to improve my small beds of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Rather, it was, where do I start?

Weeding.

I do not pretend to know everything about weeds. I recognize them because they are not part of my plan for my yard and garden. Weeds drop in on the wind, or via a bird or animal, or just because they live in the soil, waiting to spring up.

Some weeds are beautiful. Others are like octopuses, with huge spidery multi-faceted networks of stems and roots that cover large areas. There are weeds that grow in clumps, and some, like dandelions, clover, and sour grass, are even edible. There are poisonous and invasive weeds that, unchecked, choke the life out of plants, shrubs, and trees. Some weeds are ancient, seemingly embedded in the earth since the beginning of time, with roots too deep to yank out. There are weeds that camouflage, mimicking the shape and color of a nearby plant or shrub. And there are weeds that come up every year, appearing as if on a schedule.

The types and varieties of weeds could be endlessly fascinating – if weeds were not just plain annoying.

To maintain that neat, beautiful garden and lawn look, staying ahead of weeds is key. This typically means eliminating the weeds by any means necessary – getting at the roots by plucking, pulling, hoeing, avoiding the toxins and poisons they can emit – and using weedkiller when nothing else works.

When I am outdoors and it is just me, a summer afternoon, and weeds to deal with, I get some satisfaction from pulling weeds. Getting rid of them and seeing them all piled up in a heap feels like an accomplishment. It’s a short-lived feeling, though, as I know weeds will always be part of my gardening experience, flying in on a whim and sticking up in odd places where they do not belong.

Backyard gardens are not the only places we have to deal with weeds. I am grateful to be in the company of those who have embraced the free gift of God in Jesus Christ and have taken to heart the truth that sin’s power was broken once and for all by the cross of Christ. Yet sin – like weeds – keeps cropping up, uninvited, in my life.

Weeds are annoying, sometimes destructive, and rarely deadly. Still, in the interests of a nice yard and garden, I tackle the weeds with a vengeance, pulling them up and killing them by the bushels. There is one thing I never do with weeds. Replant them.

When sin shows up in my life, it is so much more serious than weeds. And having been freed from sin, why would I do anything but follow the direction Paul gave to the church in Rome so many millenia ago, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” *Romans 6:11.

But I can so easily forget to do this. I can be lulled into complacency and make peace with it. I may not immediately notice when I have entertained or indulged sin. I may call it by a name other than ‘sin’ so it looks more like a friend and less like an enemy Jesus died to destroy. I can let the sin sit there and though I know my sin is “forgiven” I forget that I must put it to death as well. There is nothing ambiguous about Paul’s words, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.”

Like weeds, sin comes in endless varieties, shapes, and sizes. And there is no getting around it – if we have a new nature in Christ, our struggle with sin is very real. We are tempted on every side, even within the church, to make peace with sin instead of putting it to death. Perhaps you will join me in taking sin seriously. Perhaps we can make it our aim to have put enough sin to death to actually have piles to lay at the feet of the One whose obedience to death on a cross defeated its power forever.